Andrew Jackson had it right.

Andrew Jackson wasn't wise! He was an emotional hothead who would challenge others to a pistol duel on the slightest perceived provocation, and carried a bunch of lead around in his body until his dying day to show for it. He was a polemicist who jacked up the rabble-rousing masses to get elected by telling them they should vote to rip off other peoples' money. He was the first President who ran for office on the basis of class warfare. He was so naive that he thought the unwashed masses were just great until he invited them to his inaugural, and they stormed the White House, stole the carpets, plates, silverware, drapes and furnishings, and began to destroy the place before Jackson and his friends managed to escape by climbing out a window. The only way he could get the rabble out of the W.H. was to have the staff move the alcoholic punchbowl out on the lawn. Then, of course, the mindless masses followed it outside.

Read a couple of histories of the Jacksonian era, but be careful of revisionist propaganda from so-called "historians" with an axe to grind, such as Arthur Schlessinger, Jr, the former Kennedy hanger-on. In his book on Jackson, he was so anxious to make a political statement in favor of the unwashed masses that he didn't even mention the inaugural episode!

If you want to understand the real Jackson, read the story about how he broke the U.S.'s many treaties with the Indian nations in order to move them from Tennessee to Oklahoma in what became known as the "trail of tears". Although even the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that he could not do so, Jackson ignored the Supreme Court and did it anyway, uttering his infamous statement that "John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it!" (In other words, Jackson would neither recognize nor enforce the Supreme Court's decision.)

Is this kind of a lawless President really what we want? I don't think so!